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Plato believed an idea was the idea state of being.
When a carpenter conceives of a table in his mind, it is perfect. His conception of the table is the real table. When he actually planes the wood and saws the legs and assembles it, when he crafts it into something we can see ad we can touch, the actual table is only a representation of the idea, an imperfect imitation.
He said that our experience is like that of a man in a cave, watching shadows projected on the wall from an unknown source. The shadows we see are only imperfect representations of the real human beings.
When a carpenter conceives of a table in his mind, it is perfect. His conception of the table is the real table. When he actually planes the wood and saws the legs and assembles it, when he crafts it into something we can see ad we can touch, the actual table is only a representation of the idea, an imperfect imitation.
He said that our experience is like that of a man in a cave, watching shadows projected on the wall from an unknown source. The shadows we see are only imperfect representations of the real human beings.
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